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We are consumed by thine anger - Death had not entered into the world, if men had not fallen from God.
By thy wrath are we troubled - Pain, disease, and sickness are so many proofs of our defection from original rectitude. The anger and wrath of God are moved against all sinners. Even in protracted life we consume away, and only seem to live in order to die.
"Our wasting lives grow shorter still, As days and months increase;
And every beating pulse we tell Leaves but the number less."
For we are consumed by thine anger - That is, Death - the cutting off of the race of man - may be regarded as an expression of thy displeasure against mankind as a race of sinners. The death of man would not have occurred but for sin Genesis 3:3, Genesis 3:19; Romans 5:12; and all the circumstances connected with it - the fact of death, the dread of death, the pain that precedes death, the paleness and coldness and rigidity of the dead, and the slow and offensive returning to dust in the grave - all are adapted to be, and seem designed to be, illustrations of the anger of God against sin. We cannot, indeed, always say that death in a specific case is proof of the direct and special anger of God “in that case;” but we can say that death always, and death in its general features, may and should be regarded as an evidence of the divine displeasure against the sins of people.
And by thy wrath - As expressed in death.
Are we troubled - Are our plans confounded and broken up; our minds made sad and sorrowful; our habitations made abodes of grief.